A useful disaster recovery plan contains simple, clear and relevant procedures to follow in order to deal with disaster.
In the context of computer data, a disaster recovery plan is concerned with minimizing and restoring lost computer data.
Developing a data disaster recovery plan involves the following steps:
User Error User's will occasionally delete a file or make irrevocable changes to data.
This is actually fairly common, in my experience; without a plan, the risk is high that data will be lost in this way.
The risk is lowered by making and keeping backup copies of files, especially those that change often.
The two most important parameters to consider when backing up files are the frequency and retention length.
Overall risk is lowered as backups are made more frequent and kept for a longer period of time.
Hardware Failure A typical rule of thumb is to replace hard drives after 5 years of use.
This is because all hard drives will eventually fail, it just a matter of when.
At 5 years, the risk of hard drive failure is high enough to justify the cost of replacing it.
Another antidote to hard drive failure is to buy two identical hard drives and configure them to mirror each other.
This is referred to as RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) level 1 and is a built in feature of many newer motherboards that support a hard drive interface called SATA.
With RAID level 1 when one of the two hard drives fail, the data is still accessible from the good hard drive.
You then have some grace period to buy a replacement, pop it into your computer and continue on you merry way.
Catastrophic Damage Earthquakes, fire and theft are real, but less likely, scenarios that require attention.
The typical means of protecting against these events is by keeping a backup copy offsite.
If you are considering your own personal computer at home, there are ways to transfer your important data to secured online backup servers, for a fee.
Just type "online backup" into your favorite search engine and you'll have no trouble finding a place to send your backups.
The key to writing a disaster recovery plan is to carefully consider all of the possible scenarios which could threaten your data.
Then develop a plan to minimize the risk and recover from the effects of the threat.
It is then just a matter of writing the plan out, like I did in these simple cases.
In the context of computer data, a disaster recovery plan is concerned with minimizing and restoring lost computer data.
Developing a data disaster recovery plan involves the following steps:
- Identify scenarios in which data could be lost
- Assign a level of risk to each scenario-Low or High
- Turn high risk into low risk using various techniques and technologies
- Develop and implement a plan to recover lost data under each scenario
User Error User's will occasionally delete a file or make irrevocable changes to data.
This is actually fairly common, in my experience; without a plan, the risk is high that data will be lost in this way.
The risk is lowered by making and keeping backup copies of files, especially those that change often.
The two most important parameters to consider when backing up files are the frequency and retention length.
Overall risk is lowered as backups are made more frequent and kept for a longer period of time.
Hardware Failure A typical rule of thumb is to replace hard drives after 5 years of use.
This is because all hard drives will eventually fail, it just a matter of when.
At 5 years, the risk of hard drive failure is high enough to justify the cost of replacing it.
Another antidote to hard drive failure is to buy two identical hard drives and configure them to mirror each other.
This is referred to as RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks) level 1 and is a built in feature of many newer motherboards that support a hard drive interface called SATA.
With RAID level 1 when one of the two hard drives fail, the data is still accessible from the good hard drive.
You then have some grace period to buy a replacement, pop it into your computer and continue on you merry way.
Catastrophic Damage Earthquakes, fire and theft are real, but less likely, scenarios that require attention.
The typical means of protecting against these events is by keeping a backup copy offsite.
If you are considering your own personal computer at home, there are ways to transfer your important data to secured online backup servers, for a fee.
Just type "online backup" into your favorite search engine and you'll have no trouble finding a place to send your backups.
The key to writing a disaster recovery plan is to carefully consider all of the possible scenarios which could threaten your data.
Then develop a plan to minimize the risk and recover from the effects of the threat.
It is then just a matter of writing the plan out, like I did in these simple cases.